I'm making this topic because I've seen that many people from this site don't know why some people are complaining about money ruling football and things like that. I don't want to sound like a whining calimero, but this is the position that the smaller leagues are in. Briefly said, 15 years ago and earlier you had leagues who were all around the same level. England, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Holland, Yugoslavia, Romania, Portugal. In football there always was a sort of capitalistic environment, always a few top teams who could spend more than their opponents. Ajax, Benfica, Steau could buy players from the smaller teams from their country. And there was a level who could spend a little bit more than that, like Man Utd, Ac Milan etc. They could buy players of Ajax if they would. But for the rest it was quite fair, the champion of Yugoslavia could win the EC1. The EC1 was only for national champions. The Uefa Cup was also a quality league because of the runners up from every team where in that league. Nothing like todays 'Europa League'. Now it has gotten out of hand. The UEFA gave the three top leagues more champions league spots...so what happened. Champions League means money, the top teams in England were able to pay higher amounts of money for players, so they could buy every player in England and abroad they wanted. The English league got more attractive, so the TV-rights went up, meaning every team getting richer, also the 'poorer' teams. Even they could buy the top players from the smaller leagues now...meaning the league gets even better, meaning more attractive, meaning more money from TV-rights and merchandise, investors. Money buys titles in 2011. What happened to leagues like Holland: Having to sell their players (Bosman), less results, resulting in even less CL-spots, less attractive competition --> less money from TV-rights, merchandise, sponsoring. ---> getting lower on the UEFA list, so again less European spots, less attractive competition It's a cycle. The only thing the smaller teams can do is raise their own players. But what happens...at age 15 they get taken away by teams like Arsenal for free, and if not, when they starting to become a star, they are bought for 20 million, pocket money in modern football, but offers the poorer teams can't refuse. Money kills football here. The result: 8 teams who can play for the CL title, the rest is filling material. Almost all Dutch teams in financial problems. A team like Feyenoord, former EC1/UEFACUP/WC winners are almost dead. Having to sell their breeded best talents for 3 million to clubs like Inter, who will have a lot of fun/money of these kids. The smaller leagues are now only a feeding league of the bigger leagues. The possibility of reaching something internationally is nil. The only way is to have investors in our clubs, but we're a small country with a shitty league, so why would anyone do that? This is why we are proponents of rules in the UEFA to protect the smaller leagues and make it a little bit more social in a capitalistic environment. More players from their own country in the starting eleven, so the rich clubs only buy the real best players. A maximum squad of 23 men, so the rich clubs only will buy the really necessary players from our country. These rules will help us building a house that can achieve something and give us our derserved results from investing in the youth academy, instead of trying, and halfway getting demolished and have to start over again. (keeping players like all of the dutch national team in Holland)
This seems a much more reasonable response than FIFA's "fair play" rules which, while well intentioned, could ultimately hurt small clubs with big owners sinking money into making the club competitive.
For good and bad. I like that players can go where they want when their contracts expire without the additional fees, they've fufilled their contracts they deserve any rewards. But why the ruling about national vs foreign players, seems like the EU overstepped the parameters of the case to me. Then again I don't understand European law.
It's not complicated. If you are a citizen of a country that has membership in the EU, then you are free to work wherever you would like within the EU. That applies to athletes as much as it does to plumbers. Arguably, to circumvent this, a league might be able put limits on the number foreign playrs on the field at any given time. Technically, you could have as many foreign players as you wanted on the bench, so this could be interpreted as not restricting employment/trade. This might need to be done on a league by league basis rather than everyone coming to a consensus EU-wide (which might be interpreted to be collusion and therefore a restriction of trade/employment). With a roster limit that's another issue. Basically, the further down the line you go w/ respect to player restrictions, the more likely you are to run up against real economic restrictions (direct or indirect) in terms of player movement and employment, which is something that the EU is against legally. In reality, any of the rules above restrict employment to some degree so there is a very blurry line. More than likely, I think we're more likely to see league consolidation to make the market for a given league/clubs larger to draw in more attractive sponsorships/broadcasting revenue. Ex: forming a Benelux league, a Scandinavian league, a Baltic league, an Austria-Swiss league or even those two + Czech and Hungary in a larger central European league. This would end up screwing the bottom half of the current first divisions of existing smaller leagues, but it would consolidate TV $$$ for the larger clubs to keep them competitive. A Benelux TV contract might be worth 60% more than the current Dutch share just based upon 60% more people being in the market. When you split more moeny across fewer clubs, those clubs have more money to buy players, so maybe the brand is more attractive in terms of quality and more competitive matches, so rather than a simple 60% jump, the TV contract might be 2 or 3 times what it currently is.
So basically freedom of movement and trade should be abolished just so a football tournament is more entertaining?
Yes that's exactly what's being said. Or I don't know maybe you're completely overreacting to what's been written. Essentially so long as a team has the appropriate roster slots available a player could go where ever they want. Not exactly abolishing freedom of movement and trade.
The only reasonable thing in the OP was the player limit thing. I would say 30 players under contract (even if they are out on loan). No limit for players under 23 years of age.
We are seeing this in basketball. VTB League for teams from the CIS/Baltic States (former Soviet Union) and the Adriatic League (mostly teams from the former Yugoslavia). They still have domestic leagues, but the idea is already out there.
They pretty much could anyway. Belgium just had a system based on a formula that was structured in such a way that would make certain moves difficult. I don't think anyone else had it. They should just have scrapped the Belgian system rather than the EU wide rules. In the UK, for example, any player was free to leave if he wasn't offered a pay rise. If he was offered a rise then he was still free to leave, but a tribunal would set a transfer fee. That fee was usually considerably lower than the club would receive for a player in contract. It did also mean that clubs would hold onto players for longer, and the periods between contract negotiations were longer. These days, if a player signs a three year deal, he's usually wanting a raise after about a year and a half, or threatening to go on a Bosman.